Gearbox Snags Homeworld Rights

[SecondPrize]

Damn, Gearbox really fucked their reputation with gamers. This is not a friendly thread, not that I can blame anyone for a lack of enthusiasm for this news.

 

[flarty]

To be fair, Gearbox was the one who assembled all those pieces of fail it into a game, but I can't imagine they were very thrilled once they actually saw what they were dealing with.

Gearbox was faced with either prolong the joke of DNF development or put this chapter of Duke to bed. since they had just purchased the rights and was probably well aware that nothing could live up to the hype, they decided on the latter. Thinking about the long term and when they could put the rights to good use in the next game that didn't have a decade of hype.

 

[Darth Sea Bass]

People, people chill it could have been worse... EA could have bought the rights! I'll leave you with that nightmarish thought.

 

[Zipa]

The best thing Gearbox can do is a HD re release of the original Homeworld. Also Cataclysm that spin off of home world was greatly underrated.

HW2 meh it wasn't so great anyway compared to the original it went too Star Warsy chosen one prophecy in the story.

 

[Weaver]

Eh... So you are saying this title has a better chance because the people there want to work on it? Duke Nukem would love to speak to you...

fun fact, DNF wasn't made by Gearbox, it was made by 3D rRealms, and released by Gearbox.

I wouldn't waste your breath, everyone refuses to believe it.

To be fair, Gearbox was the one who assembled all those pieces of fail it into a game, but I can't imagine they were very thrilled once they actually saw what they were dealing with. By comparison with previous outside IPs this one is lucky to have relatively few strings attached and Gearbox has no other pet projects to distract them. Homeworld has a chance for a completely fresh start, and there is nothing I'm aware of to prevent them from making a good game out of this. We know they are good with stats at least.

The studio that brought you Aliens: Colonial Marines and Duke Nukem Forever is now going to work its magic on Homeworld, and while I'm perhaps being a bit harsh for the sake of a zing - after all, Gearbox is also responsible for the reasonably decent Borderlands and Brothers In Arms - I can't say that my heart is aflutter with relief that it's these guys who ended up with the rights to Relic's storied space opera RTS.

Wasn't the first Brothers in Arms the highest rated WW2 game ever?

Company of Heroes was rated higher... and like Homeworld, was developed by Relic.

 

[Something Amyss]

Maybe they're sick of making shooters over and over?

Maybe they'll turn this into a shooter.

Or funnel the funding into a shooter.

 

[Tireseas_v1legacy]

OH THE HUMANITY!!
To add insult to the injury Stardock and Paradox Interactive were second and third in the bidding war.

No love for Stardock?

"Starts leaping up and down, screaming something about the awesomeness of Galatic Civilizations and Stardock in general"

Oh well I guess I will have to be happy with more Crusader Kings II dlc and Sins of a Solar Empire expansions if I want to play any real new strategy games that I haven't mastered yet. (maybe Europa Universalis IV shall quench my thirst for world domination for a while when it finally comes out)

I'm actually quite torn on whether or not I would have wanted Stardock to get the rights. Sure, they can make a great game, and I've yet to see a game of theirs without a deep lore behind it, but none of them had a campaign.

Homeworld, while excellent games mechanically (and after viewing a few videos of HW2 after reading this, still holds up visually by today's standards), was really about the story. The themes are somber, and distinctly tribal in nature. The second game felt like it was a great tale straight out of the sands of history, thanks to the narrative combined with a narrator who sounded like an elder speaking to children. The lore behind it is rich, but is revealed only on the most macro level (they found a ship in the sands with a core and a map to their home world). In the second game, there was only two real characters (S'Jet and Makaan), and everything else is about the fleet.

I could get behind Stardock getting the rights, but only if a different creative team, particularly one that aimed to continue the themes of the original two games, were to take the helm.

 

[Smolderin]

no....No..........NO!....NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!

Why!!!!!??? Oh lord the humanity! My favorite space RTS of all time in the hands of the same people who made Duken Nukem and Aliens Colonial Marines! Do they even know HOW to make an RTS game? Let alone an RTS game on the same caliber as the Homeworld franchise? Gearbox, I swear to god....don't fuck this up.

 

[Nouw]

Spoiler: Uuuh Gearbox?

Surely after Duke Nukem:Forever and Aliens:Colonial Marines they would have learnt to leave other IPs alone. Is anyone at this point really going to trust them with this?

On the bright side, they seem to have the intention of re-releasing them on GOG.com and Steam. I can at least get behind this.

Gearbox is associated with Sega.

How so? As far as I know, SEGA and Gearbox had the relationship of pub->dev for Aliens:Colonial Marines and now that the game is finished they have nothing to do with each other anymore.

Gearbox CAN make this work, it's certainly got a better shot by virtue of being acquired title someone there actually WANTs to develop.

I'd agree with you but this is Gearbox. When discussing Aliens:Colonial Marines in the dev diaries, the tweets and the countless interviews they had, it gave me hope because they seemed to genuinely want to make an Aliens game and a good one at that. Of course when the game was released, all of this meant jack. Acta non verba Gearbox.

Man this has made me cynical >.>.

 

[Signa]

Snip

It says right in the game:
Triptych made it, not Gearbox. Content was complete in Nov 2009, meaning that there was only a little over a year that the project was under Gearbox's wing. That's just enough time to get the multiplayer running and then ship it. Gearbox's name might have been on that turd, but they aren't responsible for why it sucked.

 

[Vie]

Dear Gearbox.

If you make a shooter, it better be one where your flying a fighter.

Or I'll set the Naggarok on you.

Yours sincerely
Vie.

 

[Vigormortis]

fun fact, DNF wasn't made by Gearbox, it was made by 3D rRealms, and released by Gearbox.

True. They just worked to acquire the rights to it. They saw the unfinished, poorly designed, buggy, shit state the project was in. Then decided to release it anyway, as is, with an insultingly undeserving sixty dollar price tag.

Yeah. We shouldn't be mad at Gearbox for Duke Nukem: Forever at all...

 

[Vigormortis]

People, people chill it could have been worse... EA could have bought the rights! I'll leave you with that nightmarish thought.

Meh. Wouldn't have happened.

Homeworld, as a franchise, isn't "hardcore" enough for them. It isn't a Call of Duty wannabe. It isn't a sports title. It's too complex with it's more than two action keys. And, it's in a genre that's too "strange" to homogenize without directly competing with their own Sims franchise.

Now, Activision on the other hand....

 

[Spitfire]

Well, this was bound to end badly.

If Relic had bought the rights, I would've been pissed, because Relic are so far removed from anything Homeworld-related nowadays, that I couldn't trust them to do anything interesting with the series.

If TeamPixel had bought the rights, I would've been pissed, because they don't have the resources to make another game in the series.

BlackBird Interactive (the studio where some former Homeworld dev's now work at) would've been fantastic, but they're a young studio still trying to establish themselves, and resurrecting a franchise that has been dead for a decade is probably not a priority for them at this point.

But Gearbox? Not only do they have no experience with the RTS genre, but their track-record when working with licenses that don't belong to them is not exactly stellar either.

Spoiler: This is going to be fun..

Well, that killed my hopes for Homeworld 3.

RTS really is a dying genre isn't it?

Well, I think the issue is that Blizzard set the mark so high, and has dominated the scene so intensely with Starcraft that most companies are afraid to even try, the last real attempt was from the "Command And Conquer" franchise and it didn't go all that well.

When did Command & Conquer ever try to compete with Starcraft?

Good bye Homeworld franchise.

Wait! on the maintenance frequency... I'm receiving a signal from the cryo trays in orbit, one of them is suffering a massive malfunction.

I see what you did there.

Can't say I share your optimism though.

 

[Abomination]

Gearbox is associated with Sega. Sega owns Relic. Gearbox have a history of studio collaboration.
I say they're working together.

Sega also owns Creative Assembly. I feel like Sega is going to "suggest" that both Relic and Creative Assembly "help" Gearbox with this one, just so Gearbox gets some good press for something other than Borderlands. Or cause Sega wants to put out good game. Either works.

Just looking at it you can see something amazing potentially happening.

A Homeworld real time tactical game with its own Total War turn based strategic empire management.

One can dream, I guess.

 

[Mr C]

I recall these wankers stating Gearbox Software has great love and respect for the Aliens franchise.

I loved Homeworld, may you rest in peace.

 

[Ishigami]

Well that is rather unexpected.
If Gearbox wants to break out of their shooter typecasting then I welcome that. Go ahead Gearbox.
As for their new game or what ever they do with Homeworld I wait and see...
A re-release on Steam of the series would certainly not be a misstep.

 

[Carnagath]

Homeworld is one of my top 5 favorite games of all time, and I don't really know what to think of those news. I lean towards the fact that, since Homeworld is a niche IP that can't really be cashed-in with a shitty title, they will HAVE to do their absolute best to actually make it good. Are they capable of it? We'll have to wait and see. Relic weren't doing anything with the franchise anyway, either because they have more easily marketable RTS ip's or because they were too scared to touch it again.

Also, I thought devs would have learned by now that using the word "accessible" when you are trying to hype up a game is one huge red flag. Stop using it. Context doesn't matter. Just never use that word ever again for any reason. Seriously.